


Welcome to Oswin's

by silveradept



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 07:39:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17442710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/pseuds/silveradept
Summary: Tilly finds the diner retro and Oswin pretty. And says so out loud before any filter engages, leaving Clara to decide how she wants to reciprocate, if at all.





	Welcome to Oswin's

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shopfront](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/gifts).



The first time Cadet Tilly found the diner was just after arriving, and she had managed to get herself lost in San Francisco, despite all of the clearly marked directional signs pointing every which way.

"Welcome to Oswin's," said the woman at the countertop. "Sit yourself anywhere you like. What can I get started for you?"

"Coffee, please," Tilly said absentmindedly, still staring at the directions that seemed to be making less sense by the second. Tilly shut off the device and sighed.

"Here you go," the counter woman said, setting a mug in front of Tilly. The coffee smelled both delicious and caffeinated.

Tilly blinked. "I'm...so sorry," she said, noticing there was a person standing next to her. "I didn't even realize you were there. I got lost, and everything these days is handled by computers with really good speech synthesizers and replicators. I had just assumed, and oh wow, you're pretty."

"Oswin," the counter woman said, giving Tilly's hand a small pat. "Try the coffee before you start declaring your interests, though. You might decide otherwise."

Tilly took Oswin's advice, still embarrassed to have babbled on like that to a stranger. The coffee was unlike anything she had tasted before.

"Where is this from?" Tilly said, savoring another sip.

"It's Earth coffee," Oswin said, shrugging. "Can't exactly remember when I got it, but it's the genuine article."

Tilly stared at the cup on the table, a look of horror on her face.

"I can't afford that," she said. "I mean, it's the best coffee I've ever had in my life and now I'm spoiled forever and replicator coffee will never taste the same, but this has to cost more than a commander's yearly salary and..."

"It's okay," Oswin said, sliding into the seat across from her with a cup of tea in hand. "I don't get many customers these days. Probably needed to be used anyway."

Tilly took a deep breath, carrying more of that heavenly coffee scent to her brain, and then picked up the cup and drank again.

"Isn't this a bit retro?" she said, taking in the decorations of the diner.

"Sure is," Oswin said, smiling. "People really enjoy being in another time and place, and I suppose after the first big success I had here, it just...stuck."

"Is there anyone else here to help run the place?" Tilly asked.

"Just me," Oswin said, putting a little too much emphasis on the second word, in Tilly's opinion. "But, as you can see, retro isn't all the rage right now. Is that the right expression for now?"

"Well, thank you for the coffee," Tilly said, finishing her cup quickly. "Got to get to the Discovery before they decide to leave me behind," she said, realizing she sounded, and felt, more serious about that prospect than she had initially thought. "Good night!"

Tilly strode purposefully out the door and then broke into a run as she headed in the direction she thought the shuttles would be leaving from. When she turned around to try and get her bearings more properly, the diner had already disappeared into the San Francisco traffic. Tilly stifled a frustrated scream as she continued to try and get her datapad to figure out where she was. 

"Well, what do you think, Me?" Clara asked, opening the door to the control room and hanging her diner apron on the hook. "I think she'd be a great companion."

"We'd need more coffee," Me replied, noncommittally. "I still don't know why anyone would drink something that bitter."

"On to the next adventure, then?" Clara said, with her hands on the console, before throwing the lever that sent the TARDIS spinning off somewhere in time and space.

\---

"Welcome to Oswin's!" the counter girl, no, Oswin, Tilly reminded herself, said as she stepped back into what she had honestly thought was a hallucination from her first day in Starfleet. The decor hadn't changed in the slightest, it seemed, since then.

Neither, apparently, had Oswin. 

"What can I get started for you, Cadet?" Oswin asked, snapping Tilly out of her thought process temporarily.

"Ice cream," Tilly said. "I'm celebrating my promotion and acceptance to the Command Track at Starfleet. I'm Ensign Tily now."

"Congratulations," Oswin said, smiling wide. "I'll make a special sundae just for you, then."

"You know," Tilly said, as Oswin stated to work behind the counter, "It doesn't seem like you've changed much since I saw you last. Or aged much. You still look like you did when I saw you last. That was definitely real, right? I'm not suddenly hallucinating a diner in the middle of San Francisco again, am I? I mean, if I were, then why would I staff it with someone to make things, and why would I make her into a really beautiful woman?"

"Maybe you've just got a thing for a girl in an apron," Oswin said, flashing Tilly another dazzling smile as she added more chocolate shell on top of each of the three scoops of ice cream in the sundae dish. 

"Mmm...nope," Tilly concluded, "Or I would have been all over Michael when she was making eggs as a post-run breakfast for the first few months." Tilly thought a little more on the subject, but then shook her head. "Nope. Michael is still just a big question mark, even if she was dating that... thing I probably shouldn't be talking about. Might still be classified."

Oswin laughed. "Your secrets are safe with me."

"I still don't think it's a good idea to mention it," Tilly said. "If for no other reason than because I tend to get nervous in stressful situations and that makes me blather on endlessly without stopping to breathe, and you're so close and it's stressing me."

"What about me being close makes you stressed?" Oswin said, the hints of a smile playing at her lips.

Tilly took a seat at the counter. 

"You're one of the prettiest women I've seen on this planet," she said, "Which means I should have the courage to ask you out, except that because you're so pretty, there have to be, like, a million other women in Starfleet who also like you, and there's going to be at least one that you've said yes to and I should save myself the disappointment of rejection by just not asking. And I completely said all of that out loud, didn't I?"

"You did," Oswin said evenly, setting the sundae down gently on the table where Tilly was sitting. "There is someone important in my life right now--

"--I knew it, "Tilly said bitterly, and started assaulting the sundae without remorse. Oswin gave something approximating an annoyed huff, then went back to the door leading further into the TARDIS and yanked it open.

"Me, I've made a hash of it. Can you come out here for a minute?"

Tilly looked up from her ice cream to see what looked like some very alien architecture past the door before it closed, and now there was another woman in the diner. She had the look of Scandinavia, Tilly thought. Or some of the cooler reaches of Vulcan, but her ears weren't pointed. 

"Is this your girlfriend?" Tilly asked, trying not to let too much of the acid she felt drip into her voice.

"I'm Me," the other woman said drolly. "In nobody's girlfriend. Clara is my companion in space and time."

"I'm the one who stole the TARDIS," Oswin said, with the ease of a long-standing argument. "That makes it mine. So I'm The Doctor and you're the companion in this production."

"Really?" Me said, with a baritone voice that Tilly was sure, up until that moment, no human female vocal cord could produce. "You can't even sound like him," Me continued, chuckling

"What year is it?" Oswin asked Tilly.

"Uh...it's Stardate..." Tilly began, before quieting into calculations.

"We both know that she regenerated into a woman at least once," Oswin said, picking the argument back up without missing a beat, "so I have just as much right to be Doctor as you do, and I don't need to change my voice."

"Are you sure you two aren't dating?" Tilly asked. "You sound like you are."

Oswin and Me exchanged a couple of glances before they both started laughing.

"It does seem like that, doesn't it?" Oswin said.

"You live with someone long enough, go on enough adventures together, and it does sound like a date, doesn't it?" Me replied, still channeling the impossible baritone. "Clara prefers redheads. Although, if you asked me, I think she'd be delighted if she got to braid Captain Killy's long blonde hair before taking her to bed."

"I thought _I_ was the one who got to talk about my feelings," Oswin pouted. "After all, it's my heart that's going to get broken if she says no."

"It's 2241," Tilly said. "Just worked it out--wait, 'Captain Killy?' That's supposed to be highly classified."

Tilly narrowed her eyes. "Are you Terran spies? I thought only the Emperor came through."

Oswin and Me exchanged glances.

"Oh, show her already," Me said, returning to what seemed to be a normal human voice for her appearance. "And make sure she sees the pool. I can mind the diner for a little bit."

"Show me what?" Tilly said. "I mean, I am a member of Starfleet, so if you're planning on murdering me, you should understand that my crew really _loves_ me, and they'll hunt you down with a vengeance."

"No doubt," Oswin said with a chuckle. "No large-scale deaths, I promise."

Oswin opened the door to what Tilly had thought was the staff break room of the diner. Tilly gasped as she saw the control column. 

Oswin offered an arm to Tilly.

"No dying big deaths. The TARDIS doesn't like big deaths," Oswin said and then leaned in to whisper.

"Little deaths are still on the table, though."

Tilly flushed scarlet for a moment, then got a steely look in her own eyes.

"According to my files, 'Captain Killy' wasn't just for cold-blooded murders," she whispered back.

Oswin's eyes _lit up_ and Tilly knew she'd said the right thing.

"Well, then," Oswin said. "Let's see how good you look out of that uniform. I'm sure we can find something in the closets that I'll like on you."


End file.
